Still Catching Up on 2011

If you missed "The Artist" in theaters, it's finally coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray this week, along with smaller art house titles like "Oranges and Sunshine" with Emily Watson, Belgian crime drama "Bullhead," and the Turkish murder mystery "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia." It's the same thing every year. While the majority of high-profile studio films reach home media within three to four months of their initial release in theaters, the independent and foreign titles can take much, much longer. I saw "The Artist" on the silver screen back in November, and it's taken seven months to reach DVD, where it's going to be sharing shelf space with fellow new releases "Mirror, Mirror," and "Wrath of the Titans," which just came out in March.

My Top Ten of 2011 list is still very much a work in progress as a result, and I figured that I should write out a list of the titles (mostly Academy Awards contenders and festival favorites) I'm still waiting for, and when I expect them to be available in the US over the next few months. I think people could use a reminder that some of these movies exist, and that somebody is still anticipating them. DVD release dates don't tend to be nailed down very far in advance, so some of these are only estimated ETAs. Also, I'm choosing the totally arbitrary cutoff date of October, because that's when I'll be writing my Top Ten list. There are plenty of good 2011 releases that won't be released by then, if at all. For instance, the 2010 Swedish comedy "Sound of Noise," about a gang of percussionists who stage illegal performances, is finally hitting Region 1 DVD this week, after a very limited US release by Magnolia Pictures.

July

The Kid With a Bike - The latest from France's Dardenne brothers. Grand Prix winner at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and Best Foreign Film nominee at the Golden Globes.

Margaret - The notoriously long-delayed Kenneth Lonergan drama. Several critics vocally championed "Margaret" during the last awards season, but it was almost impossible to see the film because it had almost no studio support and a practically nonexistent theatrical release. There were accusations that the distributors were trying to bury "Margaret." Then there were lawsuits. Some called it the best film of the decade. Many others disagreed.

The Turin Horse - The latest from Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr, one of those uncompromising artistic minds that the most pretentious cinema nuts absolutely love and regular mortals find impenetrable. I'm somewhere between the two. This one is a bleak period drama about an incident with a horse that gave Friedrich Nietzsche a nervous breakdown, so I'm expecting something psychologically heavy and probably narratively incoherent. Well, it worked for "Werckmeister Harmonies."

Footnote - Israeli domestic drama and Best Foreign Film nominee at the Oscars. I try to watch all the nominees, even though I know there's always controversy over the biases and the best contenders not even being submitted. I don't see enough foreign films as it is, and this is my attempt to at least cover a bare minimum.

August

Kill List and Headhunters - A pair of crime films, one British and one Norwegian, that have gotten a huge amount of buzz from festivals and other special screenings. The genre fans get behind one or two of these every year. I don't know much about either of them, but prior experience suggests that I probably don't want to, so I can enjoy whatever surprises they have in store.

Juan of the Dead - A Cuban zombie film. Yes, that's right. A Cuban zombie film, one that gets into political and social satire, as all the greatest zombie films have. I first heard abut this one after the Toronto Film Festival last year, when AICN started championing it. Focus Features will be releasing "Juan" on DVD and VOD simultaneously, but it should already be available in the UK.

Monsieur Lazhar - One more for the Oscar nominee pile.

A Separation - And here at last is this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar Winner, which was also a surprise nominee for Best Screenplay. The critical bona fides are endless. Roger Ebert and Joe Morgenstern both declared it the best film of 2011, and it took home the Golden Bear from the Berlin Film Festival. Iranian films and filmmakers have become more prominent lately, and I have been dying to get a look at "A Separation" for myself.

September

Polisse and The Intouchables - Here's where we start getting into technicalities. But these are 2012 releases, I hear you cry. Nope. I count release dates by the years that they were released in their home countries, which matters quite a bit to things like awards consideration and critical analysis. "Polisse" and "The Intouchables" were both released in France in 2011. "Polisse" nabbed the Jury Prize at Cannes and all the major critical discussion of it happened last year. "The Intouchables" only got as high profile a launch in the US as it did because the film was a monster hit in France in 2011.

Chico & Rita - "Chico & Rita" was one of the two foreign animated films that surprised industry watchers by landing nominations for Best Animated Fim at the 2011 Academy Awards. Before that, it was probably best known for popping up on UK critic Mark Kermode's list of the Top Five films of 2010, as the Spanish language "Chico" was released in the UK in November, 2010 several months before it premiered in Spain.

We Have a Pope - From Italy, Nanni Moretti's comedy-drama about a new Pope who suffers a breakdown and ends up in psychiatric treatment.

And Still MIA

A Boy and His Samurai
Alois Nebel
Alps
Tatsumi (available in the UK)
This is Not a Film

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